The Clone Wars: Commando's Dirge
by millenium-writer
Summary: When a being dies, his entire family mourns. When a Jedi dies, the order mourns. But who mourns for a fallen clone? Born to serve, bred to fight, trained to survive. Made to go where no one would, and do what no one could. They are Commandos.
1. Geonosis

Star Wars

The Clone Wars

It is a dark time for the Old Republic, as the war between it and the Seperatists truely begins.

Millions of clone troopers are deployed by the Republic to the frontlines of hundereds of worlds.

But the first of many dark days to come, for both the Republic and the Jedi who fight and die

for peace and order, began on the red plains of Geonosis, where the first clone commando

squads are unleashed...

The gunship bucked underneith RC-1579 as he shifted power from the port gun turret to the engines, the gunner was in no position to complain, he had died two standard minutes ago. Tightening his allready white-knuckle grip on the flight controls, he thumbed the firing studs on the forward cannons, and a trio of sapphire beams reduced an oncoming wing of droid fighters to flaming bits.

"Can't you move this larty any faster Fitz? I could walk quicker with a fifty kilo pack!" His sergeant snapped from somewhere in the back, where he, and RC-1578 were performing some hasty triage on RC-1580, who had been wounded shortly before the gunship nearly crashed ontop of them.

He used the word crashed because when a gunship landed without a pilot, it was either that, or _exploded_.

"Sure, just let me pull over and ask that SBD if he has a set of hydro-spanners I could borrow." Flipping a pair of toggles, Fitz drew power from the mass driver missile launchers after firing the last salvo they had. On the HUD, a twin pair of lines pulled a hard right and slammed into the core of a Trade Federation battleship as it was attempting to take off. That must have been the gunship's target before the pilot had been slotted. Jerking a hard left, Fitz was barely able to keep the LAAT/i from slamming into the hull of the massive orb shaped ship.

Almost.

The starboard wing scraped along side the deceptively smooth hull before catching the ragged hole the missiles had torn into it's side, wrenching the wing into shape not designed by Rothana Heavy Engineering.

In short, it bent.

Badly.

"Chuuba! Fitz! What was that?" Sarge allways was a bit jumpy when his feet weren't firmly planted on the ground.

"Oh, just the core of a Trade Fed battleship, nothing to worry about." Now that he had a moment, Fitz eased back on the throttle, and flicked switches in rapid succession, drawing power back from the engines to balance the performance of both out.

"Fitz?" That was RC-1578, his squad name was 'Thumper', because of his love of trandoshan concussion rifles. Simple, but fitting.

"Yes thumper?" Cutting power to both engines, the gunship dropped like a stone, just barely edging below a pair of Geonosian fighters. A single Jedi starfighter tailed them, and Fitz took a moment to admire the sleek lines of the tiny fighter. An Aethersprite-class ship, shaped like an arrow, and red like Tatooine's second sunset.

Or so one of his trainers had told him. Fitz had never been anywhere but Kamino, and today, Geonosis. He was a clone commando, trained to be the best. Along with his three squad-brothers, he was sent out to perform the most dangerous duty the Republic's Grand army required.

"Why is our starboard wing scrunched up like a Nemodian's face?" Thumper was half laying over their wounded brother's legs, holding him in a stable position to prevent his wounds from tearing open even wider.

"It had a brief run in with that Trade Fed ship's hull." Fitz took a two second pause to buckle his crash webbing before feeding power back into the engines. "Hang on!" Fighting the bucking the LAAT/i's twisted wing was creating, he leveled the shuddering craft out and pointed towards an empty spot on the battle torn red plain.

"Oh is that all? You had me worried for a se- Woulf!" Pitching face first into the deck, Thumper focused his attention on holding Ryyk down.

"Fitz, would you please keep this bird steady? Ryyk is running out of blood." Sarge jabbed another sharp of blood loss control agent into Ryyk's arm, wondering if he could risk giving him another sharp of painkiller.

"Sorry Sarge, but I'm enjoying flying this crate so much, I thought I'd keep it from hitting the ground for awhile longer." The larty was shaking now, not the gentle tremble of powered flight, but the full on rattling of a ship with a dying engine. "It's not going to hold together for much longer!"

"Fitz, take a glance out to starboard and tell me you see what I think I see." Thumper had scrambled around Ryyk's legs to check out the condition of their damaged wing.

Fitz risked a glance. "Smoke, fire, and, oh yes, a war going on." The displays were going crazy, powerplant temp critical, engine power output down, weapons offline, stabilizers failing. The list went on and on and Fitz didn't have time to read it all. "Thank you dearly, Thumper, for reminding me of that. It was so nice in the air up here that I forgot why we were shipped to this dustball in the first place."

"Cut the chatter you two, Fitz see if you ca- Chuuba... Fitz, take another glance starboard." Sarge was staring along Thumper's pointing arm.

"What could be so imp-" Fitz trailed off as he _saw_.

Standing on the smoking starboard wing, as if it had merely paused while strolling along a street to window-shop, was a figure in a wind-whipped brown cloak. A shaft of bright purple light blazed in the humanoid's hand as it directed Fitz to bank to port with it's other arm.

It was a woman. It was a Jedi. It was both.

She was jedi master Adi-Gala, and she needed a lift.


	2. Impact

Ah, my first mistake, but an honest one, from what I've noticed through a few sources, gunship's beams are green, not blue. Too bad the picture I used for my reference had blue beams, eh? Like a lot of people, I really love the clones, commando's in particular, and wished they would show more. This is one writers attempt to give a bit more insight into what it's like to be a clone.

That, and to show a few things being blown up, blasted, tossed about, smashed, and generally busted to bits along the way.

I hate battle droids, I really do.

And don't get me started on droidekas.

**Hard landing.**

"Fitz, hurry up and land this bird, you don't want to keep the General waiting." Thumper was holding the starboard gunner by the arm, both men were hanging over open air as the damaged gunship hurtled over the rusty red dustplain of Geonosis.

"Oh right away, why should I let a little thing like an engine overload slow me down?" Klaxons were blaring inside the cockpit as amber warning lights on the display turned red one by one. "Fierfek, there goes the entire port side." A large patch of systems on the display went from amber to red to black as they shut down at once.

"Problems Fitz?" Hauling the clone trooper inside, Thumper turned to direct the man to help hold Ryyk stable as the craft wildly bucked it's way through the air.

"Nothing a good month's worth of work and a total overhaul wouldn't fix." Killing all power leads to the port side, Fitz began throttling back on the starboard engine. If he played it just right, they might be able to glide in and pancake out. "Would someone kindly ask the General to step inside? It's about to get a little rough."

"If this is your idea of calm, remind me to walk the next time we decide to hitch a ride." Glancing back at Sarge and the clone trooper, Thumper wrapped his hand around the crew support rail, and leaned out of the descending gunship. "Afternoon ma'am, nice day for a crash landing, isn't it?" Gesturing invitingly with his free hand, Thumper flexed his knees as the larty lurched around him. "Would you care to step inside General? Our pilot thinks it might get a tad rough out here."

Begining to haul himself back inside, Thumper felt his stomach jump up into his throat as the gunship lurched again, and the support rail gave away with a sickening snap. Time seemed to slow down as he made a desperate grab for the gunship, for a handhold of any sort as he felt gravity pulling at him. Squeezing his eyes shut tight, Thumper decided to kill his comlink, he couldn't bear the thought of listening to his brothers last words to him. Anything but that.

Strange, the fall felt much more controled than it should have been. A rough jolt shook through his body, and Thumper felt solid contact through his armor, and weight on his limbs. Lifting himself onto his hands and knees, Thumper opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was gunmetal grey deckplating, a few centimeters to the right of his left hand was a brown boot. Definately not Grand army issue. A little farther up was the hem of a brown robe. Thumper clicked his comlink back on.

"-fek's sake is going on back there!"

Fitz sounded a little distressed, he noted. Climbing to his feet, Thumper grabbed hold of the portside support rail, thankfully still intact. "General." He nodded politely.

Master Adi-Gala returned the nod and began climbing into the cockpit to join Fitz.

"The General's moving up to join you Fitz, sit tight." Sarge was busy re-binding Ryyk's chest, a pool of blood was gathering under his right arm, and Sarge's faceplate was spattered with it.

"What happened to Thumper? Is he-"

"I'm fine Fitz, just a little shaken. The General hauled me back into the larty after the starboard rail gave way." Shaken, he felt rattled halfway to Coruscant, but he'd deal. He was a commando, afterall.

"Back into th- General." Fitz gave the General a polite nod as she climbed into the co-pilot's seat and buckled her crash webbing. Thumper would have to wait.

"What's our status?" Master Gala's voice was calm, belying the serious situation they were in.

"Ma'am, our entire port side is disabled, and our starboard engine is dam-" Several amber lights lights flicked to red for a split second before going dead. "Correction, our starboard engine is gone, we're gliding unpowered ma'am."

"Then I suggest you brace yourself." Closing her eyes, Adi Gala folded her hands in her lap.

"Yes ma'am." Flicking several overhead switches, Fitz cut power to the engines and shut down the powerplant and weapons systems. There was no point in landing at all if they turned into a fireball on impact. "Altitude fifty meters and dropping like a brick." He flicked another switch. "Deploying landing gear." Maybe the drag would slow them down enough to survive. He doubted it though. "Ma'am, I suggest you bail out, it's going to be a nasty impact."

"I suggest that you tell the crew to brace themselves, I won't be able to completely stop this ship."

"Yes ma'am." When a Jedi gave you an order, you didn't question her sanity, you obeyed. "Everybody settle in, this is going to be a rough one."

"Affirmative. Fitz, did you say we were landing?" Sarge had his hands full, still trying to retie Ryyk's bandages over the shattered hole in his armor. Thumper was busy tying them both to the deck.

"The General says we're landing. I say we're crashing." Fitz checked the display, the only powered system he had chanced leaving on. "Airspeed, five hundered kilometers, much too fast to land intact General."

Fitz felt something lurch along the airframe, then peel away. He checked the display again. "Starboard wing is gone ma'am, port wing... Is disintegrating, fast." He touched a hand to the flight controls. "Ma'am, I can try and keep it steady-"

"Please do, I have my hands full trying to keep us in one piece while I slow us down." Adi Gala's face looked mildly strained as she brought the force to bear, focusing on wrapping the ship in an invisible, protective cocoon.

"Sarge? Fitz here, we need to lose some weight, fast." This was a much harder affair now, the ship rolled at the slightest touch without wings to create drag, or engines to push it. He had to constantly fight to prevent over-correction and a surely fatal roll over.

"I'm a bit tied down at the moment, looks like Thumper is your man for this one." Nodding to Thumper, he made a gesture for him to finish up and get moving.

"Yes sir. What do we need to lose Fitz?" Thumper stood up and began moving aft, to the rear of the gunship.

"Drop the rear cargo hatch and dump those speeder bikes, then toss out anything not bolted down."

"Won't we be needing a ride once we've touched down?" Thumper pulled aside the safety cover and slapped the manual door release. "Fire in the hole!" Explosive bolts detonated and blew the hatch clear of the rapidly descending gunship.

"Negative, negative. I'd much rather walk away from this one than to have my remains transported in style." The gunship rumbled as the cabin pressure changed. "Oh, she handles much better now. Airspeed, Four hundered kilometers and dropping, but not fast enough." Switching from helmet speaker to comlink, Fitz spoke again. "Drop that baggage now Thumper."

"Clear, dropping now." Pulling the locking pins, Thumper hit the release for the speederbikes with a tinge of regret, a small one though. "Hutt spit." He pounded on the release with his gauntleted fist.

"Problems Thumper?" He eyed the airspeed indicator again. They were still dropping much too fast to survive a landing.

"Manual release is jammed." Pulling a pair of small, shaped explosives from his pack, Thumper began wedging them into the speederbikes loading rack. "Sarge?"

"Go." He had stopped Ryyk's bleeding, finally. His bio-signs were weak, but steady. Good, he'd survive, he was sure of it.

"Permission to use a heaver tool?" Priming the detonators, Thumper took cover behind the blaster rack.

"Define heaver."

"This." Thumper hit the detonator.

The gunship bucked like a wild bantha as thunder rolled through the cabin and cockpit. Flames spewed out of the back hatch and the mangled remains of the speederbikes tumbled free of the ship.

"Fierfek!" Fighting the combined yaw, pitch, and roll of the gunship all at once, Fitz somehow managed to read the display. They were roughly four hundered kilos lighter now. "Much better, good job Thumper. Airspeed, two hundered fifty kilometers ma'am, not ideal, but surviveable. Altitude..." Bringing the nose back down to a level position, Fitz hissed out a Mandalorian curse. "Eight meters, brace yourselves!"

The gunship touched Geonosian soil once, bounced, touched again, and began a tail over nose roll, shredding apart as it ground to a halt, upside down on the dusty plain.


	3. Ground

**Calm between storms.**

All he could see was darkness, syrupy thick pitch no matter which direction he looked. It was very calm and quiet too, he had no sense of any sort of movement. For a time, he drifted, aimlessly, surrounded by a textureless void.

"Did someone get the transponder code of the assault ship that landed on us?" A voice in his ear, his own, and someone else's at the same time.

Fitz opened his eyes, and didn't like what he saw.

He was still inside the cockpit of the gunship. "No, I was too busy admiring the view. Status report, who's alive?"

"RC-1578, tossed around a bit, but alive."

"Check. Thumper, what's your position?" All three members of his squad were alive, pulsing bio-monitors reassured him of that much.

"Turn your head ten centimeters to your left and look up."

"Oh." Thumper was laying flat on his back, just above him. "Forgot to strap in?" No, he wasn't above him, Thumper was _below_. The gunship has come to rest upside down. He could see the rusty red dustplain through the shattered cockpit screen.

"Ran out of straps." Groaning, Thumper hauled himself upright, hanging onto the empty co-pilot's chair with one hand.

"We're short one, where did the General get to?" The crash webbing on the empty chair was undamaged and unbuckled, indication that the General had left under her own power, rather than as a projectile from the crashing airspeeder.

"She stepped over me on her way out." Thumper's helmet was jerking back and forth. He was shaking his head, trying to clear the cobwebs. "You'll be interested to know that female jedi have smaller feet than we do."

"Is that so? Got a good look did you?" Hooking his legs around the base of the pilot's chair, Fitz unbuckled his crash webbing. Gravity jerked at him suddenly, but he only moved a few millimeters.

"When she hauled me back into the larty." Grabbing one of Fitz's arms, Thumper helped turn the commando upright. "Measured it against my hand."

"Diversity, eh?" Lightly slapping Thumper on the shoulder plate, Fitz hunched over and squeezed his way into the cabin through the twisted archway that seperated the front from the back. Sarge, Ryyk, and the clone gunner were all slumped over, the two commandos lashed to the deck, courtesy of Thumper.

"Never really visualize it untill you see it." Thumper brought up the rear, moving to check the gunner, since Fitz was allready at their brothers side.

"Mmmhmm." Extended his arm-mounted vibroblade, Fitz sliced through the knots and began pulling the cord away. "Sarge? Can you hear me?"

"Gunner's dead, snapped neck. Probably on impact, looks like he was sitting upright when we hit." Pulling the gunner's sidearm out of it's hip holster, he clipped it to the webbing attached to his chestplate.

"Pilots like to sit upright Thumper." Checking Ryyk's field dressing, he gently hauled Sarge off of the wounded commando. "On your feet soldier, no time to be sleeping."

Groaning softly, Sarge raised himself up on his elbows and shook his head. "Does anyone else feel that pounding in the back of their teeth?"

"I think that was the landing Sarge." Walking past his brothers, Thumper lightly slapped Sarge on the back plate as he hunched past, heading aft to the weapons storage. "I'm on ordnance detail, I know, I know." If they were lucky, that blast and subsequent crash hadn't smashed everything to bits.

"Hows Ryyk?" Sarge was turning over, easing himself up on one arm to check for himself.

"His vitals are low, but stable. He'll pull through, but we'd better get him to the medic's soon." Fitz was making sure that Ryyk hadn't sustained any new injurys in the crash. "Thumper, would you mind not bouncing around back there so much? This is delicate work here."

"That wasn't me Fitz, I'm not a bantha butt like you are." Humor tinged Thumper's voice as he pried open the weapons rack. "You spend too much time sitting around in those speeders you love so much."

"Remind me to mention that the next time you complain about walking." There it was again, a slow, regular pounding. "That wasn't an explosion. Too even."

"Anti-air?" Sarge was shifting the webbing on Ryyk's chestplate, he'd carry his brother on his back, just like they were trained.

"No, we're nowhere near anything vital to the separatist army. This isn't one of our evac-points either." Fitz gestured for Sarge to help him move Ryyk. "Feels more like legged armor to me."

"An AT-TE? I didn't think we had them deployed out this far." Grabbing an arm and a leg, the two commandos carefully slid their brother towards the side hatch.

"Most of our demo stuff is gone, det's cracked. Same goes for the casings on the DC-15 rack, split down the middle." There was a lot of clattering coming from the aft. "But all the power packs are salvageable, and I think we can link some of the explosives together. One, maybe two blasts if we set them right."

With a tortured screetch of metal against metal, Sarge and Fitz managed to haul the door open. The subsonic thudding they were feeling through the frame of the gunship became semi-audible. Sarge poked his head outside for a quick look.

"Uh-oh." He jerked back inside, fast. "We've got problems. Thumper, start hooking those explosives together, now." Making a subtle hand motion towards Fitz, he began fitting his arms through Ryyk's webbing in preperation for movement.

Unclipping his DC-15s, Fitz eased his way outside. In a tight exit like this, he was glad for his sidearm. It was a specially made heavy blaster pistol, like all equipment issued by the Grand Army. Limited amount of shots, but the self recharging powercell more than made up for the capacity and size.

"We've got company, move faster." Fitz squeezed a few shots off, quickly dropping a pair of battledroids.

"It'd take more than a few tinnies to get you that worked up." Thumper was nearly finished wadding all the thermal tape together. Normally used for rapid entry through locked doors, the explosive substance could make quite a dent in other things too.

"Spider droid." Squeezing another pair of shots off, Fitz ducked back inside and held his free hand out. "Sarge, your sidearm?" He kept his eyes on the advancing cluster of droids, he didn't want to have to fight clear of a horde from a single exit, not unless he had to.

Slapping his DC-15s into Fitz's hand, butt first, Sarge eased his way aft, reaching backwards. "Thumper, pass me that spare DC-15s, would you?" A sudden flurry of blaster shots streamed into the cabin, narrowly missing Fitz.

"Remind him to request a spare when we get back, it'll be easier on all of us." Crawling around Sarge, Thumper slipped the blaster into his holster for him, holding the mass of explosive in one hand. "Fitz, think you can clear me a path to that armor?"

Another flurry of blaster bolts, this time they slammed into the hull of the gunship, and Fitz stepped out of the larty, rapidly firing both sidearms. "Not really, but I can provide a distraction." He fired a quartet of bolts and stepped to the side. "Clear! Go go go!"

Thumped scrambled out on his hands and knees and took off at a run, heading directly for the spider droid. "Uh-oh." Or at least, he ment to.

"Now or never Sarge, it isn't going to get any safer." Holstering both sidearms, Fitz unclipped his DC-17 and sent a stream of luminous, horizontal rain towards the oncoming droids.

"Thumper, what's the status on that spider droid?" Sarge scampered around the nose of the LAAT/i, making sure that Ryyk was out of sight, safely attached to his back.

"Right above us, wait one." Climbing atop the frame of the gunship, Thumper held onto the mass of explosives with both hands, waiting for the armor to come just a few meters closer.

A spider droid was basicly a large sphere of metal with six legs attached and a very large cannon mounted on top. In theory, a well placed shot between two of the legs on one side would unbalance it enough to take it out of action.

In _theory._

Leaping up, Thumper slammed the mass of thermal tape onto the middle leg of the spider droid as hard as he could, willing the explosive to stay on. He wasn't taking any chances. Hitting the ground at a roll, he scrambled clear on his hands a knees. Five meters. Six. Seven. Safe enough, he hoped. "Fire in the hole!" Squeezing the det control, he dropped prone and covered his head.

Again, Geonosis shook beneith his boots. Fitz wasn't sure how many times it had happened today, he had lost count somewhere after the fifth. Uncovering his head, he jumped to his feet, flicked the safety off of his Deecee, and sprayed the remaining battle droids. Once they were down, he took a look around. "Fierfek."

The thermal tape bomb had worked allright. The spider droid was laying on one side, it's other side, the side the bomb had been planted on, had been completely blown apart, All three legs had blown free of the main body and been badly mangled.

Thumper poked his head up over one of the forcibly detached legs. "There's something to be said for proper placement of explosives."

"There's also something to be said for using proper quantity." Fitz turned to cover Sarge and Ryyk as he waved them from cover.

"Hey, I followed the training manual to the letter." Thumper unclipped his DC-17 and checked all around them, no sense living through all of this only to be taken down by a single tinnie and a fatal dose of carelessness.

"And what letter was that, exactly?" Fitz waved for his brothers to follow him, the three commando's stringing out in a line, Fitz at the head, Thumper walking backwards at the tail.

"P for plenty."  
-

For the record, not only is Adi-Gala a cannon character from the movies, she also appears several times in the Jedi Apprentice book series. I think she was on the jedi council in episode one as well, I'll have to watch the movie again to be sure though.

Also, as good of an actor as Samuel L. Jackson is, he can't swordfight very well.

And if someone can correct me on the spelling of Adi's name, I'd appriciate it.


	4. Resurrection

After much too long a delay, the commando squad makes their glorious return! I'm sorry for the wait, but fear not, for commandos don't forget, and neither do I.

So without further delay, I return you to the clones you so dearly love.

-

**Resurrection.**

**Five days after Geonossis**

**Republic assault ship _Indomitable_**

RC-1579 raised his blaster rifle a hair, sighting down the scope at the target thirty meters away. The crosshairs fluttered as he drew in a nervous breath, then held it, watching the overwhelming electronic display before his eyes settle.

"Easy... Move your hand up on the foregrip a centimeter." RC-1576 lay prone next to him, sighting the minuscule target, a small flat disc of alloy, through both his helmet mounted electro-binoculars, and RC-1579's point-of-view icon in his HUD. "Take your time, it's just a calibration test."

_Easy for you to say, your neck isn't on the chopping block._ RC-1579 was uncomfortably aware of the presence of the Jedi commander, and his two brothers, as well as a smattering of regular clone soldiers, all eagerly awaiting the results of this test. "We should put in a word to GAR procurement about a padding adjustment." He shifted slightly, and felt his codpiece move into a slightly less irritating position.

"Try bending your left leg a little more." That came from RC-1578, standing off to the side of the troop bay. He was intimately aware of how uncomfortable Katarn armor could be while laying belly down on rough terrain.

RC-1579 moved his left knee as instructed, and winced as his codpiece pressed against a rather delicate area. "No, that's much worse than before." Even with the protective matte black bodysuit, he could still feel the composite plating dig into his flesh.

"I always tuck my right arm closer to my side, use the elbow as a prop." RC-1579 turned back to stare at the alloy disc, blinking twice at an icon in his HUD to drop down the electro-binocular plate in his helmet.

Shifting his arm closer to his side, RC-1579 let out a sigh as the pressure on his... The pressure eased, that was what mattered. "_Much_ better." The crosshairs wobbled faintly during all of this movement, but didn't stray from the center of the target by more than a few millimeters. Taking a slow breath, took an instant to center himself.

Then he squeezed the trigger.

The bay filled with noise as the particle round vaporized the air between the end of the barrel and the far wall, as well as the alloy disc, leaving a particularly nasty patch black on the durasteel plating. "Scope calibrated." Clicking on the safety, RC-1579 clambered to his feet, armor clacking as he brushed himself off out of habit.

"Excellent shooting Fitz." RC-1576 hauled himself to his feet as well, forgoing the brushing down of his armor out of principle. After all, an officer was present, and there was a certain level of decorum to maintain.

"Thanks Sarge." Glancing through the scope of his DC-17 for a moment, Fitz tapped the power switch, deactivating the rifle to conserve it's power cells. "How was everything on your end Thumper?

RC-1578, gave a silent thumbs-up, his other hand pressed against the side of his helmet.

Frowning, Sarge blinked at an icon, linking up with the active comm channel that Thumper was receiving. Fitz quickly followed suit, curious as to what could distract Thumper from any sort of weapons test.

"_-king a full recovery, and should be out of the bacta tank in two standard hours. He is awake if you'd like to come in and check on him_."

"Thank you, we'd like that very much." Thumper closed the comm channel and turned to look at his fellow commandos.

_If that wasn't the biggest understatement since the founding of the Republic, I'll eat my own helmet._ Fitz could feel a shudder of relief course through his body. Waves of tension that had been steadily building for the past five days seemed to evaporate, much like the alloy disc had. "Well Sarge?" Fitz clipped his blaster rifle to his armor's webbing, cocking his head at his brother.

"Do you even have to ask, _ner vod_?" Sarge turned towards the Jedi commander and touched his glove to his helmet. "If you'll excuse us sir." Motioning to the other commandos, Sarge turned and jogged out of the bay, heading for the medical station.

Fitz turned and saluted the Jedi as well, waiting for Thumper to follow suit and begin moving out of the bay before following along. _No, I didn't have to ask at all Sarge._

The three commandos fairly sprinted down the corridors, only slowing when an officer walked by, or a junction was too clogged with personnel. RC-1580 was awake for the first time since being wounded on Geonossis. It was no surprise that they were in a hurry.

-

**Geonossis.**

The rapid _oomph oomph oomph_ of the E-web rattled Ryyk's teeth along with the rest of him, but he held the firing stud down and hosed the Geonosians as they threw themselves at him. "I could use a bit of firing support here!"

The catacombs beneath the dusty red plains were a network of interconnected caverns and long tunnels. Perfect places for setting up an ambush. Unfortunately, that's exactly what had happened when Kote squad had marched in like they owned the place.

Gritting his teeth, Ryyk turned the cannon on it's tripod and mowed down a wave of battledroids, wishing, and not for the first time, that they hadn't expended all their grenades and anti-armor rounds in the first five minutes of combat.

Explosions and repeated blasterfire drowned out his comlink, and he spent ten desperate seconds fending off a pair of super battle droids alone. Scanning the cavern with jerky, nervous head movements, he took an instant to make sure the squad channel was still open. "Sarge? Anybody?" He could hear muted sounds of battle, energy blasts, clattering stone and metal alloy, but no one responded.

Ears ringing, he made another jerky sweep of the cavern with the E-web, seeing nothing, hearing nothing but the rapid ticking of the cooling blaster barrel... And a faint clattering of stone on stone.

Flinging himself back, Ryyk narrowly avoided being bisected by a Geonosian force pike, the business end of the weapon slicing neatly through the firing controls of the E-web, rendering it nearly useless. Landing hard on his side, he freed his DC-17 from his armor's webbing and glared at the alien warrior. "Alright you ugly Fierfek, I'm going to..." Ryyk trailed off as roughly a dozen Geonosians crept towards him, brandishing large, dangerous looking bladed weapons.

Jumping to his feet as fast as he could, Ryyk pointed his rifle and flicked the safety off as the first Geonosian charged him, slamming the business end of his force pike into his side. Pain flared through his chest as the powered blade sliced neatly through his armor and flesh.

Luckily, the E-web had one, last, valuable use remaining. Ryyk squeezed the trigger of his rifle, aiming for the power generator, sending the entire weapon, and the Geonosians standing around it, up in a fantastic shower of heat and light, knocking both himself, and the Geonosian that had stabbed him farther into the tunnel mouth.

The commando and the bug-like warrior hauled themselves to their feet at the same time, both shaken by the tremendous blast. Snarling an indecipherable collection of words that sounded like a bowel movement, the Geonosian wrapped his fingers around Ryyk's throat.

Ryyk, in turn, did the same, with one small difference. With one hand, he held the alien by the jaw, hauling it's head back as far as it's neck would allow. With the other, he rammed the gauntlet mounted vibroblade into it's throat with as much force as his wounded body could muster.

Letting out another unintelligible howl, the alien released the clone's neck, and clawed feebly at it's own, trying desperately to keep it's precious lifeblood from escaping.

Twisting the blade to sever whatever bloodvessels the vile alien had, Ryyk shoved the thing down, wrenched the forcepike from his side, and sunk it into the beast's face in a vicious, two-handed stab. Stumbling back against the cave wall, he groped blindly for a handhold of some sort to keep himself upright, pressing his other hand against the hole in the side of his armor to stem the red tide flowing between his black gloved fingers.

He had lost his blaster somewhere between the E-web going up, and the scuffle with the Geonosian. Through the black haze flooding his vision, he could barely make out the pool of fluid sinking into the sandy ground. Making another feeble grab at the tunnel wall, Ryyk toppled over, sliding down the stone wall towards the ground.

He never felt his back touch the floor.

Instead, he felt strong arms around his shoulders, and the sensation of being dragged upright.

"Secure the area! Kill every last stinking bug! Thumper, move over and check on the E-web! Fitz, lob that power converter over there and collapse the tunnel!" Sarge, it had to be, cradled his brother close, his helmet filling Ryyk's rapidly darkening vision. "Easy vod'ika, I've got you, breathe easy."

Ryyk made a weak gesture at the cavern enterence. "E-web's gone... Tinnies and bugs too... Got stuck by one... Nasty sting." Trying to laugh, Ryyk started coughing instead. There was an explosion somewhere far off, and Thumper was saying something. Sarge snapped a reply, but everything was drowned out by the hammering of his own heart in his ears.

Ryyk was vaguely aware of a section of his armor being removed. _Probably for a quick sharp of painkillers_. He was painfully aware of a shiny white helmet filling his vision, a hairline crack running down one side from temple to cheekbone, and a large patch of orange goo covering one half or the armored shell. _Sarge doesn't look too good._

Then everything went black.

-

**RAS _Indomitable, medical station beta._**

Blue haze flooded his vision as his eyelids flicked open, then swiftly snapped shut again. _Chuuba._ Bacta stung a little if you weren't expecting it. Easing his eyelids up again, Ryyk took a second to press the breathing mask tightening around the lower half of his face before examining his surroundings.

Clearly he was in a medical facility of some sort, that meant that he was alive, and that meant that his brothers had to be too. How else would he have made it here?

Turning his head, he looked around more carefully. His eyes felt a little sensitive, he'd probably been out awhile, so that was only natural, since he hadn't been using them. _Let's see, white coat, white coat, medical droid, mouse droid... No troops. This has to be a Republic facility, otherwise they'd have a guard._

There was a sudden blur of motion off to his right, and he carefully turned his head to see what it was.

Through his blue tinted view of the world, he made out three figures in bulky armor, looking like a trio of walking tanks, ready to lay waste to anything in their path. To some beings, that view would have been a horror to behold. To Ryyk, it was enough to nearly move him to tears. Not that he'd ever admit it.

The armored trio put their hands to their respective heads, and twisted, breaking the seals on their armor, removing their helmets. Three identical faces showed varying signs of relief as they stepped closer. One even went as far as to pressing his gloved hand against the clear walled bacta tank.

Smiling behind the breathing mask, Ryyk touched his bare fingers to the inside of the chamber, leaning close to make out his brother's expression. Everything was distorted, and bubbling, sloshing noises filled his ears, along with bacta, but he could read lips well enough.

Di'kut atin.

_Oh, a stubborn idiot am I? When I get out of here, I'm going to thump you a good one ner vod._

Ryyk grinned. Today was a good day to be alive.

-

I'd just like to personally thank all of my reviewers, you all make it feel great to be a writer.

As you can all see, all four commandos of Kote squad are alive and well. Yes, that's right, the squad has a name. I think it's kind of fitting, in an ironic sort of way.

I realized that nobody knew how Ryyk had been injured, and rather than just saying 'he fell down' I decided to give the poor commando some action time.

Now a bit of glossary;

Atin - Mando'a - Stubborn.

Di'kut - Mando'a - idiot.

GAR - Grand Army of the Republic.

Codpiece - Crotch armor.

Ner vod - Mando'a - my brother.

RAS - Republic Assault Ship.

Fierfek - Huttese - Poison (used as a curseword by clones for some reason.)

Vod'ika - Mando'a - Little brother. (affectionate term.)

Chuuba - Huttese - Curseword.

Kote - Mando'a - Glory.

There, that's good enough for now, I think. Feel free to pepper me with questions and comments.


	5. Reflection

Apologies, ner vode, but I had to change an entire chapter of the story to make everything work. As I had it written, I just couldn't be comfortable with it.

So those of you who had their hearts set on seeing Kote squad on Kamino can have a drink on me.

The rest of you, fall in.

We've got trade.

-

**Sleep.**

**Five days after Geonosis**

**RAS _Indomitable_ en route to Coruscant.**

"How long was I out for?" Ryyk tossed the towel provided by the medical staff across the medbay and moved towards the pile of neatly folded black cloth and bright white stacked armor plates.

"Five standard days." Fitz set his helmet down on the medical station he was leaning against and stared at the bright white scar running along Ryyk's side. The force pike had neatly slipped between the commando's ribs and barely avoided damaging his internal organs. In medical terms, it had just been a nasty bleeder, nothing life threatening.

_It hadn't looked that way on Geonosis though._

"That long?" Ryyk shook out his matte black bodysuit and stared at it for a moment. Nonreflective, temperature resistant, sweat absorbing, sound dampening, and _stab resistant_. GAR procurement would have to work on that last one, apparently. "There wasn't a victory party, or I'm sure I would have woken up sooner." Stripping the suit apart into sections, Ryyk pulled on the lower torso and thigh pieces first.

Sarge glanced up from his datapad. "We've got a bit of new kit from the armory to play with." He hadn't been particularly interested in command's new list of directives anyway, he had been sneaking peeks at Ryyk to make sure he was alright as the medtechs claimed he was.

"Brand new scopes and sniper attachment, very classy kit." Thumper lovingly stroked the casing of his DC17, though his eyeline was directed at Ryyk's side. "I'm sorry to say, ner vod, that we lost the pike you got stuck with."

Ryyk froze, in the middle of pulling on his left calf section of his bodysuit. Slowly turning his head towards Thumper, he set his bare foot back down on the mildly chilly deckplating. "You what?"

"Don't be mad at him vod'ika." Sarge thumbed his datapad off and put a placating hand on Ryyk's shoulder. "It was either leave the pike behind, or leave you behind."

"Only time will tell if we made the right choice." Fitz grinned and scooped up the pile of armor plates, dropping them on an empty medical table at Ryyk's side. "Look, they fixed that hole in your armor, see?" He held up the newly replaced side-panel, the pristine white finish gleaming faintly in the bright medical bay lights.

"You could have left Thumper behind." Clenching his jaw to keep from grinning, Ryyk finished pulling on his leg sections and began stretching experimentally.

"But then who would have made witty banter with the General as the gunship was crashing?" Thumper clipped his DC back onto his armor's load bearing webbing and leaned back against the gunmetal-grey durasteel wall.

Chuckling, Sarge moved away a short distance to give Ryyk some room to finish assembling his armor. "I'm just amazed we made it back as easily as we did." Thumbing the power activation plate, Sarge returned to scanning the Grand Army's new list of directives, before paging down to the commando section.

"You call that _easy?_" Thumper shook his head as he crossed his arms over his chest, armor plates clacking faintly as he did. Tilting his head to the side, he held up a closed fist. "We crashed a gunship, shot down a dozen droid starfighters along the way, gained and lost a General, a _female_ one at that." He was flicking out his fingers one by one as he spoke. "Took down three squads of droids, blasted a spider droid to bits, and that's not even counting everything that happened _before_ Ryyk got stabbed."

"Stung." Ryyk started with pulling on his armored boots. "It was just a little sting is all." He was still barechested, his short black hair, cut in the military way, still damp with excess bacta. Activating the gripton seals on the plates, he began clamping on his greaves, kneepads, and thigh plates.

"Well, remind me to stock my medpack with bug repellent the next time we hit Geonosis." Fitz sat down on a low table with a clatter of armor, pulling his helmet into his lap. "Or better yet, we should load up on grenades and E-webs, and blast the whole dustball to rubble." He ran black gloved fingers over the pale armored dome, reflecting on the inherent flaws in the alloy shells they wore.

"Next time." Ryyk shrugged his shoulder plating on, and started fussing with his gauntlets, trying to get them to sit right. "We line up all our assault ships in a neat, orderly row." Clipping his elbow guards in place, Ryyk rolled his shoulders and swung his arms out wide, then hugged them close to his chest. "And blast that whole planet to ash." Satisfied that is limb armor was snug and secure, he reached for his chestplate.

Grinning, Thumper tapped his knuckle-plate against his blaster rifle. "You wouldn't rather try out the new kit first? You could shoot the wings off of a Stingfly at a half kilometer. Twice that, if you used the scope." He was just itching for the klaxon to go off, announcing some horrible emergency that would call for an excuse to test out their new gear.

"Only if I get a chance to find that Pike." Snapping the chest and back plates on, Ryyk reached for his helmet. "What about you Sarge? What would you d-" Before he could finish, Sarge's voice cut him off.

"All commandos and ARCs are to report back to Kamino for immediate cryogenic refrigeration, for an indefinite period of time, in accordance with the temporary motion passed by the emergency committee assigned to the task of assessing the battlefield performance of these two sections of the GAR army." Sarge lowered his datapad, staring at his squad. "Effective immediately."

There was a dull silence between the four. An uncomfortable feeling that stretched out and chilled any warmth that they had felt in their hearts. Finally, after what had felt like forever, Ryyk broke the silence.

"Well, that's not our problem." Picking up his helmet in both hands, Ryyk lowered it over his head, and gave it a sharp twist, engaging the locking collar with a dry click. "Our problem is working all the kinks out of the new kit before we hit Coruscant."

Nodding, the rest of the squad donned their helmets, lined up, and filed out of the medbay. The few crew they met traveling from the medstation to the troop bay noticed the heavy tread of the Commandos, and paused to watch as they marched down the corridor, and out of sight.

-

**Special Forces SO Brigade HQ Barracks, Coruscant**

**Five days, thirteen hours after the battle of Geonosis**

"Well, this is a lovely alternative to being frozen." Fitz blinked at an icon, and a cool wash of air blew over his face. He was in the position he disliked, which he found the more he hated it, the more frequently he was forced to assume it.

Prone.

"It could be worse, we could be back on Geonosis." Thumper was sitting upright, acting as spotter, rifle cradled in his lap. "At least you didn't fall out of the speeder." He blinked his electro-binoc panel away, and turned to examine the troops stationed on the ground and adjacent buildings.

"At least you didn't spend a week in bacta." Ryyk fiddled with his gauntlet mounted vibroblade, extending and retracting it, over and over again.

_Shunk-shunk. Shunk-shunk. Shunk-_

"Shut it over there." Sarge was standing at the edge of the roof, a few meters behind Ryyk, one hand pressed against the side of his helmet. "You see who?" His body went rigid for a moment, and he nodded. "Right, thanks for the heads up Ram."

"Getting chummy with Bravo Sarge?" Fitz nudged Thumper with his elbow. "My turn to play spotter, ner vod." As Thumper dropped prone, Fitz rolled onto his side with a drawn out groan. "They need to upgrade this armor, it's murder laying down."

"Skirata is coming." Sarge sat at the edge of the roof, and unclipped his DC, cradling it in his lap.

Ryyk retracted his vibroblade and shifted back to prone again. "The clone hating _drunk_ Skirata?" He propped his rifle on his forearm, and glanced down over the edge of the roof. If Aiwha-3 and Gamma were aware of this, they didn't react at all, not outwardly at least.

"That would be the one, unless you know another Mando drill Sergeant by that name." Craning his neck, Sarge blinked down his electro-binoc plate and cranked up the zoom. He could see a scruffy looking fellow disembarking from a speeder at the back of the crowd.

Thumper stared down the cool blue tube of his scope, one eye on Sarge's POV icon. "Think he's come to talk down bonkers squad?" He couldn't understand for the life of him what the Nulls thought they would accomplish by doing this. It was completely outside of his mindset.

"That or join them." Sarge wrapped his fingers around the foregrip of his DC, intently staring at the Mandalorian as he weaved his way through the crowd, and made contact with the Jedi General running the show.

There was a collective pause, as the rest of Kote squad felt that settle in.

"Looks like he's moving up." Fitz was paying more attention to Sarge's POV icon than his field of view at the moment. "And getting chummy with Aiwha-3." He got up on one knee, and sighted his crosshair just over the top of the front doors. "I figured he was one of Skirata's boys."

"We've got action." Sarge shouldered his rifle, shifting his attention to his scope. "Doors are opening." For an uncomfortably long moment, he half expected the Nulls to come running out, weapons blazing.

But nothing happened.

The doors open, Skirata walked in, and then they shut again.

There was another long pause, not broken by repeated blaster fire, and Fitz piped up. "Didn't see that one coming."

-

**Armory, Fleet Support, Ord Mantell, three standard months after Geonosis**

"Upgrades galore." Fitz blinked rapidly at a few icons, impressed by the amount of information installed in his database in only a few short months. "I didn't think Procurement could move this fast." Closing everything down, he disengaged his neckseal and pulled his helmet off, setting it down on a table loaded with gear.

"Nothing in the way of blades though." Ryyk fiddled with his vibroblade again. It seemed to be a habit with him now. "At least they kept our kit up to spec."

Thumper shouldered a conk rifle for a moment, and nodded appreciatively, setting it back down. "Plenty of toys that go bang though." He scooped up two lengths of ribbon, looked them up and down, then began carefully coiling them into loops. "Better bang than the thermal tape, according to the armorer." He placed the loops in separate belt pouches, just to be safe, then bean loading up on detonators.

"The Commander strike any of you as a little..." Fitz hunted for the word as he picked up an APC array blaster, working the action a few times to make sure it was in good order. "Shy?" He held the APC one handed, pulling a case of shells closer to himself with the other.

"Shy? Jedi? You're kidding, right?" Sarge trudged into the room, weighted down by three crates half a meter wide. "Ryyk, a hand if you'd please."

Ryyk hopped over and pulled a crate off, grunting with surprise at the weight. "Ulf... What's in these things?" He staggered to the side, and set the case down with a bang.

"Udesii vod'ika, you don't want that to go off, do you?" Setting down the remaining two cases with a much softer thud, he cracked the seal, and lifted the lid.

Inside were dozens of Plex rockets.

Thumper let out a low whistle and walked over, instantly drawn by the impressive amount of firepower contained within the duraplast cases. "Now that, ner vod, is my idea of playthings." Staring at the rows of rockets for a moment, he turned and ran a hand over the top of the case Ryyk had moved. "Sarge, please tell me this one has-"

"It does." Sidling around his brothers, he moved to join Fitz. "Just wipe up the drool when you're done." Slapping a hand down on Fitz's shoulderplate, he leaned close. "Problem ner vod?"

Fitz shook his head, and opened the case of APC shells, loading them one handed into the blaster. "Just thinking ahead." In truth, he was thinking back to that day outside the barracks, standing off against the Nulls. "Sarge?"

"Yeah?" Reaching across the pile of goodies, Sarge hauled a five pack of power packs closer, and began filling the empty slots on his belt with them.

"Where do you think Sarge is?" Fitz racked the action, chambering a round into the APC array blaster. "I mean our Sergeant." After a moment, he set down the blaster, and turned to look at Sarge wearing a plaintive expression.

Sarge pause for a moment, the last power pack halfway into the belt slot. "Strauss?" He thought about that, then slid the pack home and snapped the safety clip down over it. "I have no idea."

Fitz hung his head, opening up a slot on his belt and filling it with rounds for the array blaster. "That's what I thought."

"I'm sure he's chafing over the lack of cannon to play with right now." Thumper walked over, a Plex launcher resting over his shoulder. "You remember that lecture he gave us?" Setting the Plex on the table, he scooped up a folded pile of webbing, shook it out, and began attaching it to his armor.

"How could you forget that?" Ryyk dragged the two cases of Plex rockets over and sat on them. "The importance of appropriate firepower." He grinned. "Or, explosions and you; How to blow your enemy into messy chunks and be home in time for lunch."

"Alright, enough fooling around." Sarge picked up his helmet. "We have fifteen minutes to be geared up, and stowed on our ride. We've got trade." Looking at each of his brothers in turn, he felt more relaxed about this op than he had when they first assigned it to them. "Buckets on."

As one, Kote squad donned their helmets. There was a flurry of _snap-hiss_ as the collars locked and neck seals engaged. Once more the ultimate, faceless deterrent of the galaxy, the Commandos grabbed their gear and left the armory.

They had a job to do.


	6. Duty

Another chapter. I know some of you will notice an issue with the OP heading right away. Those of you who aren't intimately familiar with GAR process won't see a problem. Enjoy the story then.

Those of you who did see the problem, that's fine. I figured that GAR standard identification underwent a bit of a change between Geonosis and it's one year anniversary. You can probably thank Skirata for that one.

Just having a little fun is all. By the time I catch up, date wise, I'll have it sorted.

-

**Greeting.**

**Three standard months after Geonosis, 0543 Hours**

**Interdictor RS 'Smiling Gungan' beginning TIOPS on the Outer Rim. Currently stationed in galactic quadrant three between Eriadu and Naboo, at the edge of the Minos Cluster, just shy of the Hydian Way.**

**Currently awaiting orders from Command.**

**- Clone Pilot 241/01 to FleetCom, transmission encrypted**

"We signed up for this?" Drifting aimlessly in the dark, Fitz felt his back plate brush against the port bulkhead. The squad had settled in, relatively, stowing their packs on a rack at the stern.

"It was this, or giving foot massages to the Nubian Queen's Handmaidens." Sarge had one arm wrapped about a strut, holding himself close to the deck, his legs dangling back behind him, making him appear as if he were in free-fall. "Only time will tell if I picked the right job."

"You're kidding." Thumper had secured both himself, and his precious crates of Plex rockets to the deck with a Magna-lock. Now his backside, and the crates, wouldn't move even if the ship crashed into a planet.

Ryyk didn't join in on the conversation. A glance from his fellow commandos revealed that he was drifting close to the cockpit aperture, arms folded about his middle, snoring softly.

Shaking his head, Fitz looked down, and realized that his back had in fact _not_ brushed against the port bulkhead, but the overhead plating at the top of the cabin. Naturally, the motion created by his head movement sent him into a slow spin, and his shoulder collided with the overhead plating. This had the result of making him drift down toward the deck in an ungainly tumble.

"Udesii, ner vod." Thumper reached up and grabbed Fitz's webbing, jerking the commando to a stop. "Stop moving around so much, or you're going to get space-sick." Easing Fitz down to the deck, Thumper turned his attention back to Sarge. "You made that up, didn't you?"

Sarge thumped his booted feet against the deck, wishing, and not for the first time, that their boots had a magnetic coupler installed in the soles. "Made what up?" Hooking a leg about the strut, he freed up an arm to pull his datapad from his belt.

"The thing about the feet." Thumper sounded a bit unsettled for some reason. "People don't actually obsess that much about them, do they?"

"You'd be surprised." That came from their pilot. His name, as he'd introduced himself at the beginning of the op, was Kilter. Fitz had smiled at that one, but if he knew something, he wasn't sharing it with the rest of the squad. "You'd never believe how much people whine when you tell them they have to walk a klick or thirty. Why do you think they made me a pilot?" Kilter turned back to his display and flipped a toggle, resetting the ship's HUD.

"Because you complained so much about your feet killing you?" Stretching lazily, Ryyk twisted his spine slowly until he was facing the cockpit.

"Glad you could join us commando." Kilter flipped a few switches, powering the running lights up, then back down again. "They didn't make me a pilot because I complained about my feet." He flipped another switch, twice this time, and the ship's grapplers extended and retracted. "They made me a pilot because I complained about _walking_ so shabla far."

Grinning, Sarge thumbed through their op orders on his datapad. "You've been listening to Fitz a little too much. You're starting to get his smart mouth." Something on the pad caught Sarge's eye, and he flipped on his T-slit visor light, the eerie blue glow adding contrast to the pad's display. "Possible chance of Nemodian insurrection and rebellion?"

Thumper, who had been fussing with his webbing, trying to find a way to shift his load to counterbalance the weight of the Plex on his back, looked up. "What? What's the Trade Fed gonna do?" He grumbled and went back to fiddling with his armor's webbing. "Just pop off of the Hydian Way hyperspace route and blind jump across the sector? Attack Naboo?"

Fitz, at this point halfway back up to the overhead, tilted his head down to stare at Thumper, slowly this time. "If I were a Jedi, I'm sure I'd have something profound and insightful to say about that."

"And what would that be, oh wise one?" Ryyk touched a boot to the frame of the cockpit aperture, and slowly drifted over to where they had racked their packs and blasters.

"I have a bad feeling about this." Fitz folded his arms about his middle, much as Ryyk had done moments ago. "I'm going to take a nap. Somebody wake me when all hell breaks loose, would you?" Closing his eyes, Fitz tried to calm the nagging feeling in his gut that something was about to go osik'la. _Just a feeling, that's all. Nothing will come of it, and nothing will go wrong. Just a silly feeling._

Kilter flipped a few more toggles, turning to glance over his shoulder at Fitz. "He has a bad feeling, so he's going to take a _nap_?" _What's that saying? Bonkers? Is that what they've turned into? What is a Bonker anyway?_

Ryyk drifted to a halt as he grabbed the rack bolted to the aft bulkhead. "That's Fitz for you. All mouth, no brains." He tapped the power activation stud on each of the blasters, checking the powerpack charge levels before shutting them down again. If someone had a bad feeling, he wanted to be sure he was ready, just in case.

Shaking his head, Kilter turned back to his instruments, checking the display for any sort of anomalous readings. He didn't want to admit it, but he was feeling a little on edge himself. _Better to be safe than sorry. Is a Bonker a fruit maybe? No, what kind of sense would that make?_

"It's probably nothing." Thumper shifted his various grenades to one side of his webbing, then pulled with about the weight of the Plex launcher on the other side. "Hmm." Shifting a few thermal detonators and a flash grenade back to their original position, he pulled again and nodded. "Better."

"It's probably the Senate over exaggerating minor reports in order to get more funding for sector-wide patrols and security checkpoints along the major hyperspace routes." Sarge thumbed down the page on his datapad, checking the GAR general information updates. "Hah, figures. It says here that a few fleet commanders will be called to give 'expert opinion' on the Trade Federation threat." He let out a snort. "Trade Fed threat my backside plate."

"Shebs."

"What?" The other three commandos, plus Kilter, all glanced up in unison.

"Shebs. It means backside in Mando'a." Fitz turned a little, dragging his gloved fingertips against the overhead to prevent himself from chaotically tumbling about the cabin again.

"Oh." The others went back to their various distractions, but Sarge regarded Fitz with a thoughtful stare. "You've become quite the linguist, Fitz'ika." _Little Fitz_, the fondest way he could refer to his brother. In the Mando tongue, at least. It was something kept private, as it wasn't something the Kaminoans thought highly of. _Like names._

A couple of people in the service thought differently, however. _A pity they weren't serving in the GAR now._ Turning his attention back to his datapad, Sarge decided his time would be best spent keeping himself apprised of any developments in the Grand Army of the Republic. _That's what he always said; 'If you can't be doing something, then be learning something.'_ A small smile curved his lips. _I miss Strauss._

"We've got action!" Thumbing a button, Kilter brought up an extended readout on his display. "Possible Hyperspace contact... Correction, multiple contacts." He flipped a switch, risking a quick scan before shutting the power down once more. "Again, correction." He turned to look back at the commandos. "One big contact. One minute to realspace re-entry."

"Stand to!" Stuffing the datapad into his belt after thumbing it off, Sarge snapped into action. Forcing his boots down to the deck, he held onto the strut with one arm to keep himself from drifting away. "Ryyk, pass out the packs. Fitz, Prep the blasters. Thumper, ready an entry charge and... Oh..."

The inky void of space wavered, distorted, then swam with a gunmetal grey haze that quickly focused itself into the familiar shape of a Trade Federation cruiser.

"A minute, give or take." Kilter held one hand on the flight controls, his other hand drifted across his board, fingers twitching in anticipation. _Do I power weapons and take a shot, or do I activate the shields and try for evasive actions? I've got nothing big enough to make it worth the risk of an opening blast, so that's out. Shields and movement will just call attention that we may be lucky to avoid if we just drift here. Unless they bang into us. Maybe a Bonker is a faulty droid? It could be that._ "Got a plan?"

"Depends on if they try to blow us out of the black or not." Nudging himself over, Sarge gripped the back of the pilot's chair, staring over Kilter's shoulder through the viewscreen. "Can you plot out their intended course and time to arrival?"

The fingers of Kilter's right hand were almost a blur, rapid tapping filled the mostly silent ship as it, and it's occupants, quietly drifted through the void.

"There's only one place they would be heading Sarge." Fitz drifted up alongside Sarge, passing his blaster rifle forward. The commando had his own blaster hooked to the webbing running across his chest, and his pack locked to his back plate.

"Confirmed. Current heading takes them on a direct course to Naboo, ETA; fif- oh no." Gripping the flight controls tight with his left hand, Kilter's right dance over his board once more. "We've got trouble."

"What kind of trouble?" Ryyk's voice was close behind Sarge. "Pack check." Sarge felt pressure against his back, and he blinked at an activation icon. Another icon in his HUD flashed, indicating that his back was now locked and secure. He felt a sharp pair of tugs, Ryyk checking manually to make sure the pack was on tight. "You're good."

"They're shifting course, coming in right close on us." Reaching up over his head, Kilter pulled back a safety cover, and snapped a pair of thick, squat toggles. _Missile countermeasures armed, and the system is still powered down._ It would only take a moment for the ship to power back up, and Kilter's right hand was just about touching the activation switches.

"How close?" Thumper had moved forward as well, nudging Fitz in the side to make room. The Plex launcher was stowed across his back, his Decee hooked to his webbing to free up his hands to hang onto the cockpit aperture frame to prevent himself from drifting.

"Close enough to make me nervous." Taking slow, even breaths, Kilter resisted the urge to do anything that might get them all killed. "Do we have a plan?"

"Yeah, we've got a plan alright." _Not enough time to warn Naboo. They barely fought off the Trade Fed the last time they came knocking. We're the only Republic forces in the area too, which leaves us with only one option._ "We're going in."

"What?" _I think I just realized what Bonkers means. He's totally off his landing struts._

"We're the only GAR forces in the area. Naboo has a pitiful defense force. It's a cruiser armed to the teeth. We go in." Gripping the pilot's chair tighter, he leaned in close. "Can you take out their bridge from here?"

"Not in this crate." Seeing the obvious, if suicidal logic of Sarge's decision, Kilter fired up the ship's power plant. "It's armed to the teeth, but they're small teeth at best." Activating the shields and weapon systems, he gripped the throttle. "Hang on to something."

The squad, minus Sarge, clutched at the cockpit aperture as Kilter threw the ship forward at full burn. _We've got about thirty seconds before they figure out what's going on, I hope. That should give me enough time to get nice and close, right under their cannon's minimum firing range._ "This is going to get a little hot."

"Land in their port hanger bay." This came from above, as Fitz lay against the overhead, gripping the top of the aperture with both hands. There simply hadn't been enough room for all four commandos on the same level, so Fitz had sought another solution. "They'll launch fighters for sure once they decide to swat us aside. We get in, we can take the fight to them, on _our_ terms."

"Do it." Blinking at his database icon, Sarge brought up a blueprint of a Trade Federation ship, twisting it this way and that in his HUD. "Idiots. It's a short little jaunt from either hanger to the bridge, and the corridors are just the right size for a team of Republic Commandos to do their job."

"Sounds crazy." Twisting the flight control, Kilter sent the little ship down towards the much bigger Trade Federation ship's hull, skimming the gunmetal grey hull at a fifty degree angle. "I like crazy."

"Straighten out, you're coming in off kil... ter." Frowning, Sarge looked up at Fitz, who had gone oddly quiet the moment he had started talking. _Oh you smart mouth, you _knew_ why his name was funny this whole time._ "Alright people, get ready. As soon as we touch down, it's time to go to work."

"Think we'll get a promotion for taking this whole stinking thing down on our own?" Fitz glanced up at the rest of the squad, who were silently waiting to see if they'd even make it in alive. "I hope they make me a General, I want one of those stylish cloaks to go with my armor."


	7. Routine

Writers block is always a struggle to get around. I hadn't realized just how miserable it could be to go such a long time without writing, until I started writing this chapter. Hopefully, it's worth the wait.

-

**Knocking**

**Three standard months after Geonosis, 0543 Hours**

**Interdictor RS 'Smiling Gungan' beginning attack run on rogue Trade Federation Battleship**

The Interdictor rattled slightly as Kilter forced the throttles as far forward as he could. By factory standards, that shouldn't have made the zero-gee ride any rougher than it had been before. "Target ETA, eight seconds." Having the powerplant running at a hundred and thirty percent, on the other hand, was a factor.

The tiny craft rolled over twice as it hurtled past the rim of the Trade Federation battleship's starboard landing bay. The massive ship had two forward swept arms that ended in bays with wide hatches, designed to enable the ability to release a swarm of starfighters on a target, now it had become a liability the Commandos were only too happy to exploit.

Flipping the craft on it's side, Kilter pointed up through the cockpit viewscreen with one hand, keeping the other on the flight controls. "That's their bridge." Holding his course for an instant, he rolled the tiny ship upside down and flipped it over, heading back the way they had come. "Slight problem."

The Commandos rattled about in the compartment like chaff in the breeze,clinging for dear life as the ship bucked wildly. "AA guns?" Sarge clutched grimly to the back of the pilot's seat, eyes locked on the display readout.

"In space? You're kidding, right?" Fitz shook his head to clear it. "That had to have been heavy blaster cannon fire." He had sharply cracked his head on the overhead twice now, and was beginning to regret his vantage point. _No view is worth this._

"Ooohhh... I _hate_ those stupid looking mandibles!" Thumper slammed back and forth between Sarge and the edge of the cockpit aperture. "Why couldn't they design a normal looking ship?"

"I _hate_ bugs." Ryyk, in as poor a position as Thumper, glumly squeezed his eyes shut and wished he had solid, regular gravity beneath his bootsoles.

"Bugs?" Kilter juked back and forth a few times, then flipped the tiny craft over again, heading back towards the original target. "What do bugs have anything to d-"

"Stow the chatter! You're going to give me a headache." Sarge hauled his legs up to his chest, bracing his knees against the back of the pilot's chair. "That ship runs it's gravity full time, so brace or regret your posit- Fitz! On the deck doubletime!"

Both Sarge and Fitz had realized at the same instant, that when the gravity kicked in, one of the squad would be SOL as the saying went.

"Oh, I hate my dayjob!" Squeezing his eyes shut for an instant, Fitz took a breath, and released his hold.

The tiny interdictor craft corkscrewed through space, coming fully upright just as it lanced into the port landing bay of the Battleship.

Tucking his legs into his chest, Fitz forced his eyes open in time to catch the last crazy revolutions of the craft. _Not good not good not good!_ Thrusting his arms out to either side, he splayed his fingers and tried to adjust his landing angle. In zero-gee conditions, one was in a continuous state of free fall. That ment that while the ship and the rest of the squad had twirled about, Fitz had been free of any sort of momentum.

Armored fingers grazed the overhead, pushing Fitz a little closer to the deck, but not for nor fast enough. _Bad bad bad!_ Kicking both feet out, he felt his stomach lurch as the gravity kicked in. Artificial or not, the tug was a force that the Commando could not resist. Hitting bootsoles first, Fitz compacted into an extremely low squat, his backside plate clanking against the deck.

The surge of relief Fitz felt was replaced with shock as Kilter slammed both throttles back. Tilting his neck, the Commando narrowly avoided snapping his neck as he tumbled head over heels, slamming backpack first into the bulkhead next to Ryyk. For a moment, stars and jags of light spun before his eyes.

Yanking on the flight controls, Kilter spun the ship around in a tight turn and jammed his hand on the landing strut release button. Tightening his finger on the trigger, he released a half dozen bolts of bright blue light that reduced a wave of oncoming battledroids to fine metallic dust. "Republic air, last stop!" Lowering the craft to a half meter above the bay floor, he slapped another button and the hatch snapped open. "I stop on a cred, you shoot 'em in the head."

"Deal." Already halfway to the open hatch with blaster in hand, Sarge flicked the safety off. "Thumper, drop that cluster of droids there." Half-turning, Sarge gestured for Ryyk to exit the ship with a quick wave of his hand.

Hauling Fitz to his feet with one arm, Ryyk unclipped his blaster with the other, deftly catching it with the same hand. "On your feet, vod'ika." The instant Fitz got his feet under him, Ryyk rushed out the hatch, landing at a run towards a new cluster of droids forming up across the bay.

Switching firing modes to his anti-armor attachment, Thumper pointed his Deecee and hesitated for an instant. _If I fire too many shots, I'll run out of things that go boom._ Squeezing the firing stud, the cluster of battledroids, or rather their pieces, flew in all directions as the explosive projectile detonated. "I love my job."

Sarge had lept out to support Ryyk in the meantime, and the two Commandos used more conventional means to handle the second grouping of battledroids. "Clear!" Sarge bellowed as he swept the cavernous hanger with his weapon.

Fitz had staggered to the hatch by this time, having regained enough of his senses to grab the crate of Plex rockets and drag them along behind him. "Keep the meter running, won't be long." Shoving the crate out ahead of him with a bootheel, he carefully slipped out of the hatch, holding to the frame with one hand to steady himself.

"You'd best hurry, I charge by the shot." Tugging on a slider after he carefully glided the craft to starboard, away from Fitz, the tiny interdictor raised up several meters above the deck. Spinning the craft about, he pointed the nose, and the bulk of the weapons systems towards the open hanger doors. _Any major threats will come from there. They can't really unload any fighters from this bay without me trashing them before they can start up. And with the shape of the bay opening, it's like shooting Nerf in a pen._

The squad regrouped outside one of the bay exits. "Ok boys, split sides. Thumper and Fitz on the left, Ryyk with me on the right. We go in fast, and pour fire into anything that tries to stop us from getting to the bridge." Stepping out into the corridor, Sarge waved the others to take their positions.

Red bolts of light flashed past, and the Commandos flattened themselves against the walls.

"SBDs!" Ryyk snapped up his Deecee and held down the firing stud, tearing gapping holes into one of the Super Battledroids before it crashed to the ground, sparks spewing from it's chest.

"What, already?" Thumper leaned into the corridor, shouldering his blaster. "I haven't even racked up a dozen kills yet." Firing an anti-armor shell into the heart of the SBD cluster, the Commando leaned back against the wall and plucked two shells from his ammo belt, feeding them into the loading gate of the anti-armor attachment. "Ok, now I have."

"Fitz, bound on three." The seconds trickled by, along with another half dozen streams of ruby tinged blaster fire. Shouldering his blaster, Sarge stepped into the corridor and swept the muzzle of his weapon back and forth, holding down the trigger. A bound was a simple tactical maneuver, essentially a few quick steps between two positions of cover, the shorter the better. Performing rapid short bounds while the remainder of the squad provided covering fire was the key to gaining possession of the battlefield.

Dropping down on one knee, Sarge fed a fresh powerpack into his blaster, shouldered it, and snapped a quick shot into a tinnie's head. It went in one direction, and the torso in another. _Control the battlefield, control the battle._ _Simple as that._

Two minutes passed as the squad made a frantic dash up the length of the corridor, trading fire with droids as they went. They were halfway along the length of the ship, and falling into a numb rhythm of shoot, duck, shoot, bound and shoot again, when Sarge signaled the squad to halt.

"Problem?" Fitz looked up from his grim assessment of his remaining stock of powerpacks. Two lone slots on his belt remained filled, and the counter on the side of the pack jutting out of his DC only showed a few lateral lines of cyan glowing softly against the flat black of his weapon. _I've got problems of my own. Do I save the last two for the rush on the bridge, or do I use them now, and rely on- No, I don't want to be down to anti-armor in an enclosed space like that._

"Yeah, we haven't been back attacked yet. Commandos, about face!" Spinning on his heel, Sarge snapped up his DC, and blanched inside his helmet. _Osik._ It seemed as if the entire length of the corridor they had traversed was now packed, end to end, with droids.

"Chuuba."

"Fierfek."

"Yes!"

The rest of the squad turned to look at Thumper. "What? I brought a Plex launcher for a reason." Chortling gleefully as the squad madly scrambled to take cover from the withering sheet of scarlet blasterfire, Thumper hauled the Plex over his shoulder after clipping his DC to his chest webbing. "You boys move on ahead, Fitz and I have a date with the junk guild on Ord Mantel when this is over."

"What? Why me?" Fitz sounded rather contrite at being volunteered so casually. "There's got to be a thousand droids packed in there." Fitz angerly shook his DC at Thumper as he ducked behind cover. "And I'm down to two lousy powerpacks! What am I supposed to do, spit at them?"

"Didn't you grab the crate of rockets from the ship?" Thumbing the power activation switch, Thumper settled into a comfortable crouch and planted the Plex securely on his shoulder.

"Couldn't find them."

"Fitz." The targeting eyepiece winked from green to red as Thumper lined up the sight, aiming deep into the heart of the droid formation.

"Didn't have time."

"Fitz."

"Of course I brought the rockets!" By this time, Fitz had wrestled the crate open, and was brandishing one of the rockets at Thumper like a stick.

"Just checking." Triggering the Plex, there was a _woosh_ as the propellant ignited the air in the tube, and both Commandos felt more than heard the explosion, dozens of droids reduced to brittle chunks being the end result.

-

_Whoomp._

Sarge and Ryyk both staggered as the air around them punched lightly against their backs. "Well, it's safe to say our backs are clear." Sarge ducked as a crimson lance passed very close by his head. "Our fronts are another matter entirely. Ryyk, you've got tail duty!" Shouldering his DC, Sarge launched into a sprint towards the droids clogging the corridor ahead. Firing an anti-armor round into the crowd, he switched back to blaster mode and hosed sapphire rain into the droids as he rushed past them.

The droids that remained standing stood there puzzled as the Commando left them standing, for some odd reason, not bothering to finish them off as he should. "_Why's he running away?_" One of the droids turned to the first that was voicing, or rather, vocabulating it's confusion.

"Gar di'kute!" With a sharp squeal, the head of one droid tumbled to the ground. An instant later, and Ryyk was tearing through the rest of the staggered group like a dust storm on Geonosis. Pausing to admire his handiwork for a moment, he sneered at the piles of scrap. "Kar'tayli ad meg hukaat'kama." Retracting the vibroblade mounted in his gauntlet, he flicked the Wookiee honor blade he held in the other hand up in a mocking salute, then raced after Sarge, who hadn't bothered to slow down for a second.

Panting, Sarge was looking over the sealed doors leading to the bridge. "What was that all about?" He cast a quick glance at Ryyk before resuming his assessment of the bulkhead surrounding the doorway.

"Just a bit of friendly advice." Sheathing the blade at the small of his back, Ryyk unclipped his Deecee and swept the corridor with the muzzle. "Still clear."

"Thanks for stating the obvious." Frowning, Sarge shook his head. "No good. We're going to have to wait for Thumper to haul his shebs over here to blow the door for us." Turning to look at Ryyk, he froze as he heard a noise.

Whhrr-clatter-clatter-clatter.

"Droidekas!" Ryyk was across the hall in an instant, seeking the shelter of a branching section. Peeking around the corner at the rolling piles of metal, he fired a sustained burst into the lead destroyer droid, reducing it to a pile of slag in seconds.

Sarge fired as he ran, a heartbeat behind Ryyk. He didn't even bother to look where he aimed, hosing the floor up the corridor as he dropped to his knees and dragged a hand to help him spin around as he skidded to a stop. Rising to one knee, he leveled his blaster and waited for the first of the droids to pop into view.

An instant later, a pair of them rolled into the open. Ryyk opened fire, Sarge didn't.

Rather, he _tried to_, but all his blaster gave off was a series of clicks as he franticly hammered the trigger. One of the destroyers went up as he realized the problem. _Empty! Stupid, stupid sloppy!_ Slamming in his final fresh powerpack, he opened up on the remaining destroyer just as it unfolded into combat mode. For a moment, he thought he saw the shields pop up, and figured they were both dead. Instead, a shower of sparks sprayed the air as the droid collapsed onto it's side in a shuddering heap.

"That's how it's done!" Grinning, Ryyk moved to step into the corridor when he heard a series of rapid clicks and clanks. Sparks and smoke filled the air as Sarge yanked Ryyk back behind cover, the Droidekas spraying the wall instead of the Commando.

"That's how it's half-done." Poking his head into the corridor for a look, Sarge lept back as the droids opened fire once more, scorching the wall jet black in seconds. Retreating back a few meters, Sarge dropped to one knee and leveled his blaster, listening to the destroyers clan closer.

As the first rounded the corner, they both opened fire, and were knocked flat by the force of the blast coming from the Droideka.

"Ryyk... Are you dead?" The roar of a thousand ion drives filled Sarge's ears, and he struggled to turn himself on his side. The blast had been harder than he had ever imagined, he hadn't realized how hard a hit from a Droideka's blaster would be. "Ryyk?"

"I don't think so... Are you?" Ryyk was slumped against the corridor wall, he had been flung slightly off to the side, and hand skimmed over the wall before hitting the ground.

"I'm... Not sure." The roar dimmed somewhat, and he heard a familiar clacking. "Hear that?" He struggled to get an arm beneath his body, forcing himself up.

"Yeah." Ryyk leaned against the wall, levering himself up slowly by pushing against the ground with his legs. "It sounds like an APC array blaster."

-

Sprinting to close the distance between himself and the droids, Fitz racked the action on the APC and fired again. _Array blasters aren't made for long distance shootouts, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let those chakaare touch my brothers._ Racking the action again and again, Fitz emptied the APC into the closest Droideka, tossing it down when it ran dry. Unclipping his Deecee, he fired it one-handed while he drew his DC15s with the other. Thumper's Plex rocket had mangled most of the small army of destroyer droids, but the ones at the back were still mostly intact.

Flinging the Plex ahead of himself, Thumper had raced after Fitz, pulling a pair of ion grenades free from his webbing. When he got to the Plex launcher, he kicked it around the corner towards Sarge and Ryyk, bowling both grenades past Fitz. _Firing a Plex rocket into a pack of droids, good idea. Not being sure if the rest of your squad is clear of the blast and almost killing them, bad idea._

Slamming into the wall, Thumper felt the breath explode from his lungs, then heard the grenades go off. _Fitz can handle the rest_. Pulling free two coils of ribbon from his belt, he twined them together quickly, and plucked out a bead-sized detonator. "Breaching charge ready!"

Sarge limped up to lean against the wall next to Thumper, plucking the sidearm from his brother's holster. "I'll borrow this, go go go!" Half-turning, Sarge drew his own DC15s and pointed both blasters down the corridor, taking careful aim to avoid hitting Fitz in the process.

As Thumper raced to place the breaching charge, Ryyk painfully made his way over to Sarge, after having collected both of their DC17 blasters from the ground a dozen meters from where they had landed. Peeking around the corner, he saw the last of the Droidekas go down in a mangled heap, and he pressed Sarge's DC17 into his hands. "Almost done."

"Fire in the hole!" There was a flash, and thunder rolled through the corridor.

Tossing Thumper back his sidearm, Sarge raced into the rent in the door, closely followed by Ryyk. A moment later, and Fitz was there, stuffing shells into his APC array blaster.

"Don't shoot!" There was a flurry of movement, and a half dozen Nemodians were raising their hands. "Please, we surrender."

Thumper stalked into the room, balancing the Plex on one shoulder, holding his DC15s in his other hand. One of the Nemodians whimpered at the sight. Ryyk moved across the room, checking to make sure it was clear and droid free.

"I suggest you shut your droid control system down Captain, or else he might get a little _irritated_." Jerking his head towards Thumper, Sarge limped over to prod the Captain back to his feet with the muzzle of his blaster. "Quickly."

Racking the action on the APC, Fitz moved to usher the command crew away from the bridge consoles. "Oh yeah, promotion time. Snazzy cloak, here I come." Nudging one of the slower crew members with the toe of his boot, Fitz sighed happily. "I love my job."


	8. Disassembly

Well, someone voted for it, so here it is. You should all thank whoever decided to hit up my 'new chapter' poll.

-

**Rude company**

**Three standard months after Geonosis, 0551 Hours**

Kilter hummed to himself as he squeezed the firing stud, sending a wide spray of blue energy bolts into the deploying wing of droid starfighters. Showers of sparks and slagged metal splashed onto the deck as the clone pilot spunk the small craft about and hosed another cluster of SBDs.

A trio of destroyer droids rolled into the landing bay, and unfolded themselves as Kilter swung the nose around to bring his weaponry to bear on them. Reacting too late to prevent them from firing, he watched as the dozens of ruby lances raced towards his craft, even as he hosed the droids with blaster fire.

Yanking back on his altitude control slider, he dipped the craft up and over the energy beams, narrowly avoiding having his landing gear ruined. Shoving the slider forward once more, he spun the craft about, scattering droids about the cavernous landing bay as the stubby wings of the craft clipped the thing tinnies stupid enough to try closing in on the deadly little ship. "I could do this all day."

A high pitched tone started up, and he tipped the craft onto it's side, barely avoiding an explosive projectile fired by an SBD. Tilting the nose down, he poured fire into both the guilty SBD, and the dozens of droids pouring out of the bay door behind it. Another warning alarm sounded, and Kilter irritably glanced up at his overhead display, swinging around the tiny vessel once more. "Now wh- ..." Rolling the craft about, he looked through the top of the cockpit, staring out the landing bay entrance, and into the starry void of space.

Out in space, a tell-tale distortion made the inky black, broken up by hundreds of tiny points of light, waver and dance. "Oh you can't be serious." Glancing down at his control board, he thumbed a dial a few clicks, adjusting one of his sensors. Moving his hand a few centimeters to the right, he toggled the comm switch with a flick of his middle finger. "I hate to interrupt any merry-making you boys may be up to, but we have a problem."

-

"All I'm saying is, if it took an entire army, a whole security division, and a couple of Jedi last time, then five guys taking a Trade Fed ship on their own is a big deal."

"You're just saying that because you want a promotion, Fitz." Thumper sorted through his demo kit, checking to make sure he had the right explosives on hand to blow the droid control relay to make sure it stayed down for good.

"If not a promotion, then I just want one of those snazzy cloaks to go with my armor. I don't think it's too much to ask." Sitting in one of the control stations, Fitz flipped a few switches, cutting power to droid recharge racks. His APC array blaster was resting across his thighs as he worked with one hand, the other fiddling with the action from time to time.

"It is too much to ask." Ryyk stood over the captured Nemodian command crew, casually twirling his blade every few seconds. Mainly, he did it because he was bored. Also, it amused him to make the crew flinch by twisting the blade so it caught the bridge lighting just right, flashing and glimmering through the air, passing a little too close to their collective heads. "Do you have any idea how much it's going to cost them to resupply us for the next mission?"

"Hey, it's not my fault that Thumper went so wild with the Plex like that. Why should it cut into my net worth?" Flicking another row of switches, Fitz reversed polarity on a set of recharge racks, draining the droids power sources.

"Are you kidding? I probably have a higher kill ratio than both of you put together." Plugging dets into small bunches of ribbon charge, twined together and twisted into tight loops, Thumper resisted the urge to shoot Fitz an irritated glance.

"Yeah, but wih all that blasting, I'll bet you barely broke even. Plex rockets aren't exactly cheap you know." Another row of switches flicked, and this time, Fitz tripled the amount of power flow travelling through the recharge racks. He chuckled. "That should cause some interesting problems."

"Fitz, what're you up to?" Sarge looked up from his datapad, still in the process of composing his mission report. Slumped against a bulkhead, he had his pack off, and was still trying to shake off the dull ache in his upper torso. Being thrown about by explosions didn't agree with him that much, he had noted between half-doses of painkillers.

"Juuuust overloading some of the droid recharge racks." He chuckled again. "I like to make things explode as much as Thumper does. The difference is, I like to be cost effective about it."

"Well, just make sure you don't-" Pressing a gauntleted hand to the side of his helmet, Sarge abruptly stopped talking. Listening intently for a moment, he thumbed off his pad, and struggled to his feet. "We have a wrinkle."

Fitz glanced up from the control board. "How big of a wrinkle?" His fingers tightened around the stock of the array blaster, and he felt a uncomfortable tickle in the pit of his stomach, knowing he wasn't going to like the answer.

"Roughly the size of a small city, and bearing down on us fast." Shrugging his pack on after stuffing his pad into his belt, Sarge unclipped his DC and gripped it in both hands. He noted that his powerpack was down to half a charge, and resolved to dedicate more pack space to extra ammunition in the future. _How did anyone survive combat before blasters were invented?_

Fitz let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "That's a pretty big wrinkle." Glancing down at the control board, he began rapidly flicking switches. "I'm shutting down external coms, internal sensors, and outside datafeeds. Even if they have override codes, it won't do them any good with the systems depowered. Not right away at least."

Thumper hastily began shifting charges around, grabbing dets and shoving them into place. "Why do I get the feeling I'm going to be running out of these before we get out of here?" Silently wishing for some more powerful brands, he started daisy-chaining explosives together. "I'm thinking of the spider droid and the thermal tape bomb, for some reason."

Ryyk glanced over, drawing his DC15s with his free hand, and pointing the muzzle directly into the command crew's midst, just to remind them of what would happen if they got any stupid ideas. "I don't remember that one."

"Because that's how we're going to do it. Thumper, get a big charge rigged. Fitz, give me the location of their ammunition storage, and the main reactor." Flicking off the safety on his Deecee, he ambled over to Ryyk, still limping somewhat. "It was back on Geonosis, when we were making our exfiltration after the crash. There was a spider droid in our way, and we had to improvise."

"So, this improvising you speak of." Ryyk thumbed off the safety on his sidearm, and nudged a Nemodian in the forehead without turning to look. "How does it work?"

-

Puffing hard, Sarge pushed himself to sprint down the corridor, back towards the landing bay where Kilter waited. "Fitz, Thumper, is everything ready on your end?" Rounding the corner, Sarge swept the bay with his blaster. A magled heap of scrap lay just inside of the entrance, a testament to just how much fun a pilot could have in an enclosed space without complaining.

Ahead of him, Ryyk was already prying open one of the deck lift covers to reveal the dark shaft below. "Thumper, just to confirm, all I need to do is drop this thing down there, and I'm done?" Ryyk glanced at the ugly looking explosive he held in one hand. The device was cobbled together from a mix of ribbon, breaching charges, and a single thermal detonator that was split into halves and wired into the rest of the mix.

-

"Almost Sarge." Setting the last of his explosives into place, he waved for Fitz to help him replace the panel, covering up any trace of the tampering they had set up. "Ryyk, all you need to do is drop it, ammo magazines on battleships aren't known for their ability to take direct hits."

"This seems like cheating to me." Fitz bolted the pannel into place with a large hydrospanner. "Setting the ship on a collision course, rigging it to blow, and just running away to a safe distance? What's to stop us from winning every fight this way?" Sitting back on his heels, he took a moment to admire his work.

-

"How about the fact that there's no way command would ever think of making anyone's lives that easy?" Ryyk muscled the cover back over the lift shaft, then stomped it back down into place. A quick application of a thin fragment of thermal tape on each side of the cover later, and there was no way anyone was going to get it back open. "The tape did the trick, nice idea Thumper."

"You call this easy?" Sarge hauled himself into the waiting vessel, grunting with the effort of hauling himself, his armor, and a twenty kilo pack up a half meter raised platform. Half-crawling across the deck, he detached his pack, shoved it into a corner, and used the back of the pilot's seat to pull himself upright.

"Well, it was easy enough for me." Kilter flicked a few switches, then glanced over his shoulder at Sarge. "You doing ok back there? I have a medical kit stashed aboard if you-"

"I'll be fine, thanks." Sighing, Sarge leaned against the cockpit aperture, turning his head to watch as Ryyk easily climbed aboard. "I just need a few days of R&R and I'll be fit to fight again." Closing his eyes, he pressed his helmet against the bulkhead and tried to relax.

"So, um. That ship is about to smash into us." Kilter turned a dial a few clicks with his thumb, adjusting the scanners again to pick up the area just outside of the Trade Federation battleship. "Just thought you guys would like to know that, you know, incase you'd like to get out of here alive."

-

"Really? Was that what the plan was?" Sprinting down the corridor alongside Thumper, Fitz pumped his arms for speed, his blaster and APC clipped to his chest webbing to free up his hands. "Because if it isn't, I'd love to squeeze that in, you know, just for a fun change of plans."

"How much longer do we have until that ship crashes into ours?" Thumper resisted the urge to reach over and give Fitz a good smack along the side of his head, only because that would throw off his stride, and they couldn't afford to slow down now. Later, he'd give him a good smack, later.

-

Outside the captured vessel, the second Trade Federation battleship was desperately straining to move itself out of the way of the oncoming ship. Unfortunately, ships that massive had no way of turning as fast as the frantic command crew wanted, no matter how much power they forced into the engines. Disaster loomed as the two multi-billion ton ships slowly raced towards each other.

-

The bay creaked as the ships hulls touched, and began to deform under the incredible stresses placed upon them by the slow-motion collision. Firing up the Interdictor's engines, Kilter lifted the tiny ship from the deck of the bay, half spinning the craft about to point the entry ramp towards the back of the landing bay. "We really can't afford to stick around here any longer. In about fifteen seconds, that charge is going to go off, and I need at least seven to get us to a safe distance."

"Then we wait that eight seconds. We're not leaving without the whole squad, got it?" Sarge had one hand on the pilot's seat in a white-knuckled grip. Helmet turned towards the corridor exit, he silently willed the other two Commandos to appear, feeling the seconds sluggishly tick away.

"Actually, it's more like four now." Turning the nose of the ship to face the bay exit, he lightly rested his hand on the throttle controls. "Time's up. We can't wait any longer or none of us are going to make it out of here."

Moving to the hatch, Ryyk gripped the edge of the frame, and began to lean out.

Shoving the throttle forward, Kilter twisted the flight controls. The tiny vessel turned on it's side and raced out of the bay as the massive frame began to deform and crumple.

Halfway hanging out of the hatch, Ryyk held on for dear life as the ship lurched about him.

Seconds later, the charges on the main reactor and weapons magazine detonated. Seconds after that, the two ships, locked together from the stresses that had welded the hulls together transformed into a massive fall of light and flame.

Punching the afterburners, Kilter was shoved deep into his seat as the racing explosion slowly began to catch up to the tiny fleeing craft. "Hold on!" Freeing his hand from the throttles, he flicked a few switches, and adjusted the ship's powerplant output to a hundred and forty percent. It was either risk exploding from overstressing the powerplant, or getting caught in the blast wave and exploding anyway.

A tiny bead of sweat tricked into Kilter's eye as the leadng edge of the blast wave crept towards the brightly burning engines at the rear. After what seemed like forever, the light began to fade, and it's expansion slowed. Letting out a deep sigh, Kilted quickly snapped switches, dialing back the powerplant's output to a more comfortable ninety percent. "So, thoughts?"

Half-turning from where he had leaned against the bulkhead, Sarge reached over, and hauled Ryyk back from the still open hatch. His lips were pressed together in a grim line as he remained silent

"My favorite part is where we didn't die in the explosion." Poking his head in through the hatch, Fitz glanced around the interior of the tiny vessel. "This thing seems a little smaller now that I think about it."

"Fitz!" Shoving Ryyk out of the way, Sarge reached over, caught Fitz by the chest webbing, and hauled him through the hatch. "You're alive!"

"Uh, yeah. It was just a couple of battleships exploding, come on." Pulling Thumper inside, Fitz thrashed his arm about. His gauntlet and elbow plate were tangled in Thumper's webbing and refused to let go. "But Thumper didn't make it."

"My shebs I didn't." Helping Fitz extract his arm from his webbing, he gave in to his craving, and smacked the Commando in the side of the head. "If I'm dead, you're dead too, di'kut."

Prodding Sarge in the back plate, Ryyk sidled around the group, reached over, and triggered the door controls, shutting the hatch. "I'm glad to be here too Sarge." Turning around, he draped an arm over Fitz and Thumper's shoulders.

"If either of you two idiots ever-" At a loss for words, Sarge grabbed the two by their webbing straps, and hauled them close. "I'm making you run laps around the barracks when we get back."

"Is it too late to go back and explode? I'd kind of prefer it to laps, and no promotion." Heaving a sigh, Fitz closed his eyes and continued in a mournful tone. "I'll bet they won't even give me a cloak... Hey." Fitz opened his eyes, looking at everyone in turn. "Does anyone remember what we did with that command crew?"


	9. Trench

A grand return for the GAR forces... For the unstoppable Commandos.

Again.

-

**Discussion**

**Special Forces SO Brigade HQ, Mess hall, Coruscant**

**Thirty hours after the Nemodian encounter.**

"So, we go through all that trouble, and as a reward, they feed us... What is this anyway?" Fitz swirled his fork around the mess tray, dragging a soggy lump through a greyish paste. Holding up the fork, he stared hard at the lump speared on the end of it. "It looks like someone repurposed our ration cubes."

The mess was rather empty, as the rest of the Commando forces had yet to complete their missions and be recalled to Ord Mantell. Fitz was one of the few humanoids sitting down in the mess hall to eat.

"Can't be, ration cubes don't have flavor." Across from Fitz, an identical clone stared at an identical meal, wearing an identical expression of distaste. "This stuff definitely has a flavor."

"You're kidding." Fitz's expression changed to one of disbelief. "You call this flavor?"

"Bad is a flavor." Grinning, the identical man dropped his fork, pushing the tray away from himself.

"Funny. Has anyone ever told you that you're a di'kut?

"Why, yes. I do believe someone had mentioned that before."

"Drink your juice already Fi." Rolling his eyes, Fitz stuffed the unknown lump into his mouth and chewed, carefully. Swallowing with his eyes closed, so he couldn't see Fi's expression, he set down his fork and pushed his tray away with a grimace. "I'm done."

"Can't say I blame you." Fi took a long gulp of pale yellow juice. "I can't believe you actually ate that." He wiped a trickle of muja juice from his chin.

"All part of being a member of Kote squad. You'll learn someday son." Fitz reached for his glass, draining it in several long gulps.

"Keep it in your mouth next time." Fi advised, reaching for the pitcher to refill Fitz's glass for him. "It helps to cover the taste." Topping off his own glass, Fi chose his next words carefully as he set the pitcher down. "I notice you said 'son' again."

Fitz grunted, taking another gulp of muja juice, keeping some in his mouth like Fi had suggested. The crisp flavor of the fruit juice did the trick of covering up... Whatever he'd been eating before.

"Sergeant Skirata's legacy continues to spread outwards." Niner set his tray down on the table beside Fi's, sitting down beside his fellow squad member. "Fitz, I heard your boys are in the tubes again." Reaching for the pitcher of muja juice, he gave the fellow Commando a level look. "They alright?"

"They'll be fine." Fitz pointedly ignored Fi, turning his attention to Niner instead. "Just banged up a little. I heard Atin got it worse." Like the rest of Kote squad, Fitz was keenly aware that death could come for any of them, at any time. "How's he doing?"

"He'll survive." Sipping his juice, Niner elbowed Fi in the side as he opened his mouth. "That makes our squads one for one in the serious injury tally."

"Not quite." Fitz glanced down at his tray for a moment, wishing the food didn't taste so badly. He was still hungry. "Sarge and Ryyk got kind of battered up too, so I think you're ahead of us."

Shrugging, Niner picked up his fork and stared at the tray. "I don't know where to begin."

Fi grinned. "Try the lumps that look halfway recognizable, that's what we did."

Shaking his head, Fitz drained his glass again. "I don't know what gets on my nerves more; the bad food, or that shy Commander in the armory."

"Commander Jusik?" Niner glanced up from his tray, looking first at Fitz, then at Fi. "Jedi? Shy?"

Fi shook his head, for once without anything smart to say. "I've never heard of anyone talk about a Jedi like that before."

"They just don't seem to know enough, from what I heard after your story got 'round." Fitz refilled his glass again, keenly aware of how full his bladder was getting. Filling up on fluids wasn't the best idea at any time.

"Careful, they say all Jedi are all knowing." Fi wagged a finger at Fitz.

"Not all knowing enough."

"They also say the Force tells them everything."

Fitz grunted, unsure of why his mood had turned sour. _Maybe its because somebody mentioned Skirata again._ "Maybe just everything they need to survive."

"Hmm." Niner suddenly looked thoughtful. In truth, he was thinking back to his time on Quiilura, and all he had seen Commander Tur-Mukan do, and not know. "Interesting thought. Why don't you ask Darman?"

"Ask me what?" Setting his tray between the squadmate's trays, Darman grabbed Fi by the shoulders, and slid him over until he could fit between the two Commandos.

"If the Commander actually knew anything... Besides the Jedi stuff." Fi was about to go on, except the jab between his ribs from Niner convinced him of the wisdom of silence.

Staring blankly at his tray, Darman didn't respond for several seconds. He seemed to be making his mind up about something. "I think it's got to do with the war." Darman picked up his fork, staring at it. "If you never needed to eat with a fork before, would you know how to use it right away?"

Fitz stared at Darman's fork in silence.

As did Fi. "... I think you got hit in the head one time too many Darman." Shaking his head, Fi reached for his own fork, holding it up point-first. "With food like this." He pointed at the unknown, pasty grey lump still speared on the end. "Who would want to learn?"

Niner let out a grumble, glaring at the slop on his tray. "It's a metaphor, Fi."

"What part of the metaphor did it come from?" Fi tilted his fork sideways, a cheeky grin on his face. "Short ribs, or flank?"

A sudden groan made the quartet of identical men look up. Standing beside the table was yet another clone. "I survived a capital-ship explosion for _this?_ If I had known this was going to be my reward, I would have stayed behind with the command crew." Setting down his tray beside Fitz's, the clone rolled his eyes as he sat down. "And the food's pretty grim too."

Fitz shook his head. "You made your choice when you let me grab your webbing, Thumper." Grabbing the juice jug, he filled Thumper's glass for him. "And it was a _double_ capital-ship explosion."

"So it was." Thumper immediately set to his meal, not bothering to look at what he was shoveling down. "All that work, and no promotion."

"No snazzy cloak either." Grumbling, Fitz closed both hands around his glass, staring into it's half-full depths. "I really wanted one too. The brown would have gone so well with my dazzling eyes, and the blue of my T-slit visor." He glanced across the table, realizing that Omega squad was being very quiet. "What? It would have."

Fi shook his head. "It's not that." He nodded towards Thumper. "He does have tastebuds, right?"

"Who, Thumper?" Fitz glanced at the man in question. "Hard to say."

Niner grumbled again, looking away from the disgusting sight of someone actually eating army chow, and not looking repulsed or gagging. "And they say Delta's vats were spiked."

Fitz shook his head. "It could be worse."

-

**Unnamed plain, muddy trench, Dantooine, four standard months after Geonosis**

An explosion rocked the earth, further embedding Fitz's armor into the gooey wall of the muddy trench Kote squad was taking cover in. "Thumper! Thumper!" Fitz jammed a fresh power pack into his DC-17, then wiped at the mud that spattered his visor and faceplate. "Thumper!"

"What?!" Roughly shoving a rocket into his Plex launcher, Thumper hunkered down across from Fitz. Just at the Commando's feet, an open crate of rockets was slowly sinking into the mud. It was already half-empty, and the explosives expert was doing his best to lighten the weight further, before it was lost beneath the surface of the muck forever.

"Remember back in the mess hall when I said it could be worse?" Fitz switched his blaster to his left hand, and hauled himself up halfway out of the trench to return fire on the CIS forces closing in. "It's worse!" Propping the muzzle of his blaster on the armored forearm of the arm he was using to cling to the earth, and keep from sliding back into the trench, the Commando held down the trigger and hosed away the entire power pack. A cloud of sapphire beams lanced into the approaching B1 battle droids, cutting them down where they stood. His efforts thinned their numbers, but thinning alone wasn't going to stop them from coming.

"What? Fitz, that was..." Ripping an ion grenade from his webbing, Thumper primed it, and lobbed it well over the front line of oncoming droids. "That was nearly a _month_ ago!" The ion grenade _popped_, and Thumper jumped up. The distinctive sound of the droids vocabulators frying was drowned out by the _whoosh-whoomp_ of the Plex rocket going up, taking out an entire formation of droids with it.

"Cut the chatter and fight!" Sarge blasted away with both hands, having acquired an E-5 droid blaster rifle. At some point in the engagement, not long after Thumper had unlimbered the Plex, bits of shattered droid had started raining into the trench. A few working blasters had been among the wreckage, and Sarge wasn't one to look a gift Nerf in the mouth. Definitely_ need to request a second hand blaster when this is all over. And some harder armor too._ "Did anyone else hear about Omega getting new kit after we shipped out?"

Ryyk clicked his comm twice, signaling a negative. Crawling belly-down in the muck as he was, he didn't want to waste any of his breath on speaking. It was hard enough to dig through kilograms of mud, mangled droid, and broken pieces, just to find a few working blasters or explosives.

"I heard something about them getting the new armor model just after we shipped out, yeah. Typical for procurement." Thumper shoved another rocket into the Plex's launching tube, and shouldered the launcher. _I'm starting to run out of rockets here. Next time we have orders to 'watch for light hostilities around the landing pads and extraction zone', I'm bringing four crates of rockets, and a..._ "Fitz! I'm angry, and need to describe something. What word do I use in Mando'a?"

"Is it an object?" Fitz had slithered back down into the relative safety of the trench, and was reloading his Deecee again. _I wish I had brought my ACP Array blaster with me, even if it wouldn't do much good against all these di'kutla tinnies. _"Or a person?"

"Object!" Thumper jumped up and let loose with the Plex again, dropping back onto his heels to reach into the ever sinking crate for another rocket to reload.

"Try 'talyc' then, it means bloody!" Clipping his blaster to the webbing attached to his armor, Fitz took stock of their weaponry. _We don't have nearly enough ammo or explosives to hold these droids off. I'm worried that we may have to start pulling back, maybe..._

_Three rockets left._ Jamming the third-to-last rocket into the tube of the Plex, Thumper considered passing out his share of power packs, and resorting to his DC-15s for the remainder of the fight. _Next time, four crates of rockets for sure, at MINIMUM, and a talyc tank._

Feeling the bile rise at the back of his throat, Ryyk kept digging through the muck with both hands. Bits of smashed metal, and hunks of droid alike were pushed aside, while working pieces of weaponry were clipped to the webbing strapped to his armor. It hadn't rained recently, but the freshly dug trench was still lined with mud and ooze, whet by the spilled blood of the 53rd infantry. It reminded him of the Sickener back on Kamino; The trenches strung over with razor wire, and filled with Nerf entrails. It made him just as sick to his stomach as the training had back then, too. _I am NOT going to throw up inside my helmet again. Not in a hot zone._ The face behind the T-slit visor was grim, as the Commando focused on his job, and continued to slog through the muddy gore, back towards his squad.

"Check fire! Check fire!" Sliding down the side of the trench, Sarge tossed the expended E-5 to the ground, holstering his DC-15s. "We've got friendlies coming in!" _Survivors from the 53rd? Some of them had tried to circle around and perform a pincer. Maybe some of them actually made it out._ Unclipping his DC-17, he flicked off the safety, and stood back up. "Kote squad, provide covering fire!"

As one, the Commandos rose and unleashed the full fury of their training. To a man, they were all accurate, swift, and deadly. Each was easily able to knock down an entire formation, single-handedly, without any form of support or aid. As a squad, that force was multiplied five-fold. Dozens of battle droids stood in the way of the security of the trench, and the infantry rushing towards it.

Dozens of battle droids _withered_ under the hail of fire from the Commando squad, giving the infantry the precious time they needed to make it to shelter. They didn't bother to slow down. Having just raced through a small battalion of droids, they had the sense to simply dive in, and hoped they landed on something besides anti-droid booby traps.

One of the soldiers hauled himself upright, clutching his DC-15A to his chest with one hand, using the other to find a hand-hold on the slick trench wall. "Sir! CC-1701/74656, reporting for duty!"

"Stow it soldier." Reloading his Deecee, Sarge clipped it back onto his webbing. "Just tell me how many men you have left, and how much ammo there is to go around." Tugging his sidearm blaster out of it's holster, he absently checked to see if the dynamic powercell had recharged itself. _With our luck, we're going to be supplying them with ammo, instead of the other way around. Isn't the cavalry supposed to be the one doing the rescuing? At this rate, maybe I should just resign myself to being the one doing all the day saving, and stop hoping that someone else is going to ride in and save our shebs._

"Yes sir." The trooper wiped reddish mud from his faceplate, staring at his glove in stunned silence when he realized _why_ the mud was red. "Ah... C-current... Current..."

Sarge thought he saw the man's hand shake a little. _I guess none of them had to go through the sickener as part of their standard training exercises._ Putting a hand on the trooper's shoulder, he leaned his helmet into the clone's field of view. "Steady son, take it easy." He gave the man a little shake, just to get his attention. "Look at me, and tell me how many men you have left. That's an order." He added the last part after a beat, hoping that would jar the trooper from his train of thought.

"Y-yes sir." Shaking his helmet from side to side, the trooper wiped his glove on his armor, leaving a long red smear, and gripped his rifle with both hands. "We're down to about ten percent. Most of the unit split into smaller groups, to better surround the enemy." Taking a deep breath, the trooper continued on, probably trying _not_ to remember what had happened to his mates. "Most of us were cut down by the Super battle droids. We did manage to take a few down before the Commander ordered us to withdraw."

"I hate SBDs." Fitz slogged through the muddy trench, hauling troopers upright as he passed them. DC-17 strapped to his webbing, he was carrying a pair of Plex rockets under one arm. It seemed like Thumper had convinced him into playing pack duty again. "Remind me to order a nice big ion cannon next time we talk to a loadmaster, will you Sarge?"

"What we really need to do, vod-ika, is get ahold of one of those eggheads at BlasTech, and get them to shrink down a blaster cannon into a more manageable size. I'd love to cart one of those things into battle, even if I needed a repulsor truck to carry it." Hauling the Plex launcher off of his shoulder, Thumper held it out, motioning with it a little for Fitz to reload it for him.

Ignoring the pair, Sarge began motioning for the regular clone troopers, who had by now gathered themselves somewhat, to line up and prepare to return fire. "And do you two di'kuts want to tell the rest of the class why you've stopped fighting back?"

Plucking a remote detonator from his belt, Thumper wagged it at Sarge a few times. "Because the droids are almost at our _red line_, and it seemed like a shame not to take advantage of that." Flicking open the protective coving on the detonator, Thumper settled back against one wall of the trench. "Eyes on, would you please Sarge?"

_Di'kut._ Shaking his head, Sarge moved to peek out of the trench. _I wonder now..._ Blinking at an icon, he opened a comm channel. "Ryyk; Sitrep." Tilting his head a little, Sarge risked inching a bit further up, staring at the approaching wall of B1 battle droids.

"Almost done." Ryyk was puffing hard over the open channel. "I've passed out enough blasters to arm all the troopers I could get to. A couple of walking wounded were nice enough to donate some power packs to the cause. They're being passed down the line, and should get to you in a few seconds."

"Good." Sarge would have blinked down his electro binoc panel, if only the droids weren't so _close_. _Less than fifteen meters, right in spitting distance._ "They've crossed the _blue line_ Thumper. Prep _red line_ for detonation." _Now all we have to do, is hope the lines do their job._

Thumper flipped a switch on the detonator. "_Red line _primed and ready to go. At your signal Sarge."

"Take take take." Sarge ducked down, covering his head.

_Click._

A sudden series of explosions rocked the earth, pitching several surprised troopers to their knees. Plumes of dirt and shattered droid few into the air, and rained back down to the ground. The entire squad had donated their fragmentation grenades to the effort they had dubbed 'red line'.The idea was simple; Rig the grenades for remote detonation, and bury them a few centimeters under the soil. Blue line was even less fancy of a solution to the droid problem, as it was just a few strings of AP micromines daisy-chained together.

Climbing back to his feet, Sarge squinted, trying to peer through the cloud of smoke that hung over the remains of the droid's forward line. "That bloodied their noses. Thumper." Sarge unclipped his Deecee from his armor's webbing, flicking the safety off. "Trigger the _blue line_ now."

"My pleasure." Thumper triggered the detonator again, and a rapid-fire series of sharp _cracks_ punctuated the much lower thuds of exploding droids. Shouldering the reloaded Plex after he tucked the detonator back into his belt, he lept up and fired the launcher in mid-air, landing in a crouch and reaching for the last rocket that Fitz held. "Last rocket."

"One more bang, and then we go running in for the kill." Grinning behind his faceplate, Fitz had blinked open a comm channel before he'd spoken. He wanted to make sure that Ryyk had heard him good and clear. "Up close and _extra personal_ today." There was a startling loud and _close_ hiss of steel rasping against steel, making Fitz spin around and extend his knuckle-mounted vibroblade with a loud _shunk_.

Tapping the Wookiee honor blade against Fitz's little knife, Ryyk shook his head. "You'll need a lot bigger Kath hound sticker than that to handle me vod'ika." Passing Fitz a power pack with his free hand, Ryyk moved to the edge of the trench, waiting for the droids to draw near enough for him to go to work.

Without a word, Fitz retracted his vibroblade, and tucked the power pack in his belt. _I'm going to stick his head in the 'fresher when we get back to barracks._ Moving over next to Ryyk, Fitz put his back to the trench wall, and laced his fingers together to form a stirrup.

Ryyk tucked a boot into Fitz's grip and silently waited for Sarge's _go_ signal.

Thumper clutched the Plex to his chest, standing right behind Ryyk, waiting for his turn to get a leg-up. He'd be firing at point-blank range, right into the heart of whatever heavies the enemy had.

Nobody cracked a joke, or commented, or made a noise louder than raspy breathing. The time for fun and humor was over; Kote squad was about to run into the breech while the 53rd fired from the safety of the trench.

War was scary business, there was no two ways about it.


End file.
